Temple Lights

(I forgot to blog about this the other day. Better late than never, huh?)

One of our family traditions at Christmas time is to go see the lights at the St. George Temple. We make hot chocolate and then walk around. We usually end up in the Visitors Center for a little while so the kids can look at things. That's their favorite part of the tradition. It wasn't as cold as I remember it being other years and there weren't many people there.

Then we drove around looking at Christmas lights before going home. It was a good FHE.

The cute kids:
The Temple with the moon (pretty cool!):

Our Ward Nativity

A few weeks ago the Primary Chorister announced that the Annual Ward Nativity would be held in a few weeks. They asked that if any children would like to sing solos to let her know. Of course, in Junior Primary, Courtney volunteered immediately to sing a solo. The chorister then asked Ethan during Senior Primary if he would be willing to sing with her. Like a good big brother, he agreed.

They practiced the song and ended up sounding really good. Ethan was very nervous and stared at the same spot the entire time he sang but he did a great job and didn't forget any words. Courtney was just excited so she didn't have any problems.

Here they are:



We didn't think about it until we were home but Bryan mentioned that, with all the Church buildings being wireless now, we could have Skyped that to all the family and they could have seen it live. Oh well, we will remember for next year!

The Paper

We cancelled our newspaper a while ago because they hiked up the price and we didn't want to pay it. Let's be honest here, it's a small town newspaper that doesn't have a lot in it. So I felt that we were paying a lot for nothing. I really didn't think we would miss it much but found out that we really did miss it.

Every week or so, we get a phone call asking us to "come back" to the newspaper. Each time they sweeten the deal a little bit more but not enough to make us want to subscribe again. A couple of weeks ago, we got a subscription plea in the mail giving us a really good price but it was only for 6 months. We talked about it and decided we would do it, but I kept forgetting to find the form and fill it out.

Yesterday, while I was teaching piano, the phone rings and it was the newspaper again. This time they offered us 7-days-a-week home delivery newspaper for $11.06 per month FOR LIFE, as long as we don't ever cancel. I couldn't pass that one up so we are now paper subscribers again!! Ethan can't wait for the comics.

It pays to be a hold out!!

Courtney Playing the Piano

Here is Courtney Pack playing the piano this morning

Our Little Piano Players

Here is Ethan practicing this morning:

Decorating for Christmas

Since a lot of our Christmas decorations (including our tree) had been used at the Ward Christmas Party, I decided to put a bit of stuff up Friday while trying to clean up. I didn't put much up because the kids wanted to wait and have Bryan help us decorate.

After dinner, while Bryan read a book to us, we decorated the house. It was a lot of fun! I think it turned out pretty well.

Ward Christmas Party

Our Ward Christmas Party this year was crazy....amazing...but crazy! The Relief Society was in charge so I asked this amazing woman in the ward to take it over. And took it over she did!

Our Stake Center was converted into Old Nauvoo. The classrooms were assigned out to groups and then made into the various shops found in Nauvoo. We had the Scovil Bakery because they are Bryan's ancestors. There was the quilt shop, book shop, photo shop, tin shop, Red Brick Store, park, wagon rides (with real horses) and the Mansion House.

I gathered a few things from our house, made 18 dozen gingerbread cookies and then went to the Stake Center Wednesday night at 8:30 to begin decorating with a ton of other people from the ward. The wind had been blowing gusts of 30 mph all day long and it was really cold. So it was hilarious watching everyone unload their trucks with stuff. One tree blew away and I was almost blown away carrying a table in from our van. The woman in charge had a ton of stuff there for me so I just had to put her stuff together with what I had and I would be finished.

At 8:35 the power went out!! Not to be deterred, we grabbed flashlights/lanterns and everyone kept on decorating. Bryan called at about 9:30 thinking that the Church still had power because he couldn't imagine who would be crazy enough to keep decorating in the dark. I left at about 10:30, just as the power was going back on. Hahaha

People spent most of Thursday morning putting finishing touches on their rooms and getting everything ready. I spent most of the day frosting the 18 dozen gingerbread cookies I had made and running around buying last minute things for anyone still decorating. Did I mention that half of our Relief Society tablecloths were missing when they went to get them to decorate for dinner? Yup! What a mess that was and we never did figure out who had them. So I bought some plastic ones from the dollar store for them to use. They weren't excited but it was better than nothing and no one noticed that night.

Bryan came home from work early and we all got dressed up. A woman gave me a pioneer dress to wear (I was Mrs. Claus) so you won't see any pictures of me here, I didn't want that documented. But we did have an old fashioned picture taken that night. We got to the Church, finished setting our stuff out and then I took the kids around while Bryan manned the store for a while, then we switched so we could see everything.

The kids had their foots measured for boots:
This is part of our bakery room:
The kids on the wagon ride (Courtney went a few times but Ethan only went once because it was really cold that night!):
The cute kids LOVED handing the cookies out and making sure everyone had a copy of the recipe. (I actually didn't use their "official" recipe so Ethan would tell people that this wasn't the recipe for the cookies they were eating but the "official" one. It was cute.)
This is the Red Brick Store complete with butcher paper painted to look like bricks on the walls. Yup, that's fake folks. The young women spent weeks making all the brick walls for the party.
We had a ton of people show up (many we didn't know). We had places set for about 300 people at dinner and we had to set up a few more that night. It was a hit but a lot of work for one night.

After the Stake President gave the closing prayer blessing "all the many people who will helping to clean up" we began cleaning up. There were so many people who stayed afterward that it took us 20 minutes to get our room finished and, when Bryan stayed to help, there wasn't anything to do. So we were home before bedtime!

My stress level is now so low that I don't know what to do with myself! ;)